What is Lug Wrench Brewing Co.? It’s a virtual brewery with operations in both New England and Virginia. The ‘company’s’ core beliefs are in hand-crafted brewing, beer exploration, and most importantly, camaraderie. Lug Wrench is a brewery that doesn’t have to worry about profit margins, distribution arrangements, or market share. It gets to focus on the important things: beer and the culture that surrounds it. Lug Wrench Brewing Co. could just be the best brewery you have yet to hear of.

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Thursday, February 17, 2011

Poll: Homebrewing Recipe Sources

Similar to what has been done for all our prior blog polls, this post takes a moment to memorialize the results we recieved on our most recent blog poll. The readers responsed to the question "Where do you get the majority of your homebrewing recipes?" are presented below.

Total Votes: 30﻿

What I love about these results we received are twofold. First, print media (whether magazines, books, fliers, etc) still account for a sizeable percentage of where people get their recipes. In a nutshell, this may mean that people still like to feel paper on their fingertips when they are referencing recipes - more so than digital or online means. I would conjecture that this may have something to do with the disposable nature of online media. Recipes in paper-based publications may give the impression that the author would not have paid the publication costs unless the recipe was proven or 'good' - a sense that the recipe may have been previously validated. Whereas anyone with a blog (...ahem...) can whimsically post a hair-brained recipe concept at anytime with no real implications as to whether the recipe is even worthwhile.

The second point we can take from the results is that a very large contingent of responders are developing their own recipes, which is fantastic It can be intimidating to begin building a recipe from scratch. It took me a year or two before I was comfortable enough to being my own recipe formation, and even then I was just making modifications to existing ones. Exploring the thought process and challenges of developing a recipe is the central premise of the Recipe Formulation Project that Tom and I have been exploring. Not every attempt will be a success, but learning from mistakes and adapting as a result is what allows a recipe to improve from 'so-so' to 'awesome'.

Let us know your thoughts, either as a comment or an email. And if you are reading this, we've put up our next poll which awaits your response.

Slainte!

-JW

"The best way to die is to sit under a tree, eat lots of bologna and salami, drink a case of beer, then blow up."
-Art Donovan